PORTSMOUTH, N.H.—In the recently released quarterly United States Construction Pipeline Trend Report from Lodging Econometrics (LE), the franchise companies with the largest construction pipelines at the end of Q2 2020 were Marriott International with 1,487 projects/195,952 rooms, followed by Hilton Worldwide with 1,395 projects/160,078 rooms, and InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) with 920 projects/94,499 rooms. Combined, these three companies account for 68 percent of the projects in the total pipeline—roughly the same percentage as at the close of Q1 2020.
Home2 Suites by Hilton and IHG’s Holiday Inn Express continue to be the most prominent brands in the U.S. pipeline with 415 projects/43,336 rooms and 371 projects/35,539 rooms, respectively. Hampton by Hilton follows with 304 projects/31,365 rooms and then Fairfield Inn by Marriott with 302 projects/29,251 rooms. These four brands combined represent a quarter of the projects in the total pipeline.
Other notable brands in the pipeline for each of these franchise companies are Tru by Hilton with 298 projects/28,863 rooms; Residence Inn by Marriott with 208 projects/25,520 rooms; SpringHill Suites by Marriott with 184 projects/20,842 rooms; TownePlace Suites by Marriott with 207 projects/20,802 rooms; and IHG’s avid Hotels with 189 projects/17,090 rooms.
In Q2 2020, LE recorded 580 conversion projects totaling 66,852 rooms. Of these conversion totals, Best Western dominated with 150 conversion projects/13,482 rooms—alone claiming 25 percent of the conversion pipeline by projects. Marriott followed Best Western with 79 projects/13,721 rooms, then Hilton with 69 projects/11,279 rooms and IHG with 50 projects/5,382 rooms. Best Western and these three franchise companies combined account for 66 percent of all the rooms in the conversion pipeline across the United States.
In the first half of 2020, 313 new hotels with 36,992 rooms opened across the United States. Of those openings, Marriott, Hilton, and IHG collectively opened 69 percent of the hotels: Marriott opened 90 hotels/11,036 rooms, Hilton opened 82 hotels/8,728 rooms, and IHG opened 44 hotels/4,190 rooms.
